The program is surprisingly easy to use. The screen capture tool is accessible separately from the encoder. The Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 Screen Capture displays a lightweight interface.

Here it is possible to configure various capturing settings, including the output directory of the screencast, recording frame rate, bitrate and quality, utilization of the webcam, audio settings for recording audio, and starting the recording.

The quality settings require further inspection. The frame rate can be set to a value between 5 and 60 frames per second, the bitrate to a value between 100 and 50000 and the quality level from 1 and 100.

The recording can be started with a click on the record button, or by pressing the CtrlShift-F11 key which is used for starting and pausing recordings.

A selection screen appears where the program draws boxes around elements on the screen. It is possible to record the whole screen, or only a part of it by using the controls offered on the new selection menu. The menu offers some interesting options, like selecting a pre-defined recording resolution or resizing a selected window to fit the selected recording dimensions. A click on the record button shows a three second countdown before the recording starts.

From that moment on all action in the selected area will be recorded as well as audio if the tool has been configured to record audio as well.

The following hotkeys are available during recordings:

• Start/Pause Recording: Ctrl – Shift – F11
• Stop Recording: Ctrll – Shift – F12
• Zooming: Ctrl – Shift -F9

A control is displayed next to the recording area as well for users who prefer to start, stop and pause recordings with the mouse.

The size of the recording depends on the quality settings and the recording area on screen. It is possible to play the recording right in the capturing tool. This acts as a preview as it needs to be converted using Microsoft Expression Encoder 4. A word of advise: Do not get disappointed by the quality of the preview, as it is not the quality of the resulting movie. This becomes obvious when the recording is send to encoder.

Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 offers many video processing options. Users who just want to get a result as quickly as possible can click on File > Encode to create a video of the screencast.

Users with more time at hand find hundreds of settings, from encoding quality settings to output formats (Windows Media, mp4 or IIS Smooth Streaming), pre-processing configuration, metadata, encoding enhancements and options to cut, add or remove part of the recording right in the program interface.

The quality of the video looks better in the Expression Encoder 4 window than in the preview window. controls to simply playback the video are offered, as well as adding subtitles, A/B encoding comparison and dozens of additional options and settings.

Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 is an all in one solution to create HD screencasts in Windows.

Expression Encoder 4 requires the Microsoft .net Framework 4, and is available as a free personal edition, and a pro commercial version.

Freescreencast.com allows you to quickly create and push button upload screencasts to the web. Once uploaded, you can either view it on site immediately, or you can embed the screencast in two modes onto your website or blog. I also love the fact that you can so easily export your screencast into an flv file for future use. This is great for me, since I’m thinking of doing some screencasts, but I don’t necessarily want to share this with everone.

Also, the application is very bare-bones, no bells and whistles, but for me, none needed. I don’t really need annotation, advanced editing and plugins for effects. If you simply want to ability to record and share, or save, without any hassle, Freescreencast.com and their software is for you.

If you need a tutorial on all this, take a look at the Starter Tutorial, but you can find more on the website. I found the tut to be a bit on the funny side, to me the persons accent is very irritating (sorry), and the recording quality could also be better. Note that the screencaster is using Vista, with all skinning taken off.

The service Screencast-O-Matic offers a free and reliable way of creating screencasts using just your browser and Java. It is not necessary to register an account to create a screencast. This is only necessary if you want to publish the screencast later on the website of the developer.

It is furthermore possible to export the screencast into Apple Quicktime format without registration as well. You probably would like to know more about the process of screencasting itself.

Just click on the Create button on the Screencast-O-Matic and select a resolution for the screencast. You currently can choose between 640×480, 800×600 and 1024×768 plus the option to screencast full size if you have a maximum resolution of 1024×768.

You may then choose a way of recording the audio or select to not use audio recording. Last but not least you may select to use a red square that displays mouse movement in the screencast because the mouse pointer itself is not shown.

Only the frame of the window that you have selected is shown unless you select to screencast in full size. The frame can be moved around and all applications, not only the contents of your browser, can be moved into and shown during the screencast.

The screencast can be started and stopped at anytime but the maximum recording time is 15 minutes at this time. After finishing the screencast you get the option to export the screencast to .mov or upload it as a public or private screencast to the Screencast-O-Matic website which requires a registration.

I recorded a 15 minute screencast and exported it. The file that was created was 120 Megabytes in size and it took only a few minutes to create.